Recognition
by cricketchick1990
Summary: It seemed to take an age for them to realise.  LilyxJames.


_Hi there!_

_So I've been away from this site for some time (writing wise anyway) and thought that I would stage a small comeback in the form of this LJ fic._

_This is my first time in this fandom so hope you enjoy!_

_cricketchick1990_

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><p>It seems to take an eternity of time for them to realise.<p>

He's head boy, surprisingly.

She's head girl, not so surprisingly.

He's changed, matured.

She was always mature.

Slowly, other things begin to change too.

At first, it's barely noticeable. He still calls her Evans from time to time. She still calls him Potter.

He still spends a majority of their time conversing cracking jokes or making sexual innuendos. She still pretends to ignore them, or scolds him for not paying attention to her.

Then they begin studying together, working on potions and transfiguration and charms essays together until the library closes, and then long into the night in their own common room until she falls asleep and he inevitably has to carry her up the stairs.

Evans becomes Lily, or Lils.

Potter gradually and ever-so-awkwardly becomes James.

She doesn't ignore his jokes anymore, but spouts them straight back at him, she laughs at the antics of him and his friends, lets herself be pulled into in depth conversations about Quidditch for hours on end, and even joins them at the Gryffindor table for the first time since she came to Hogwarts.

Bets are placed.

He insists on walking her and her friends to class, carrying her books (she doesn't even protest that she is perfectly capable of doing it herself) and even manages not to blow up Snape's cauldron on purpose for the first time since first year.

And while he doesn't stop hexing Snape behind her back, he stops jinxing people in front of her.

But then he's attacked in the halls, for no apparent reason, and everything seems to move forward at warp speed.

She's _defending_ him, wand sparking, eyes and hair ablaze. Defending him, against the boy who introduced her to magic, against the boy that has betrayed her.

He's not conscious to see Snivellous scuttle away, but he hears the rumours from his usual spot in the hospital wing, and by god he wishes that he could have seen it.

It's then he realises that Lily Evans scares him, but not because of her power, because of something else, and he's not sure if it's in a good or a bad way.

Lily realises that James Potter scares her too, but she's already figured out why, and that terrifies her more than anything.

Things spiral backwards. James reverts to Potter, and Lily Evans is back to running away from him, ducking behind tapestries that he never realised she knew about, losing herself in the crowd in a way that any top class auror would envy.

He chases her, everytime, but by the end of the term James has done enough chasing. He's exhausted from it, from trying to fathom why she's running all the time, from trying to figure out the complexities of Lily Evans' mind.

So he stops trying.

And then, a cruel twist, and reality strikes.

It arrives one morning after Christmas, she's not sure which; a rectangular piece of parchment, stained with navy blue ink, sealed with blood red wax.

Appropriate, really.

Her whole world stops, and she's gone the next day.

The funeral is short, the eulogies sincere, heartfelt, deep-hitting, but don't really describe how anyone feels about her parents, how she feels about her parents.

Later on, in the cemetery with her sister and Dursley, she breaks.

And suddenly he's there, they're all there, surrounding her in warmth, glorious warmth, and she feels a little piece of her heart thaw.

He stays the longest, ignoring pointed looks from her sister and the whale, holds her until she has run out of tears, and long after that.

She wonders why she ever ran away.

He takes her to Hogsmeade the next weekend, not bothering to ask for her permission, and it's like they'd never stopped talking, like nothing had changed.

Potter becomes James.

Things begin moving forwards again (their friends reset their bets, Remus ups his, Sirius doubles it, and Lily's friends join the stakes too). Then one night James finds himself shoved against the wall of the fifth floor corridor, cold stone at his back, uncomfortable as hell but yet, still kissing Lily Evans for all that he's worth.

Its lips, tongues and teeth, and probably the most heated, passionate thing that either has experienced. It goes on for an age, until they're both breathless, yet both wanting more.

They deny it to each other later, of course, neither wanting to rush, to scare the other away.

But it happens again and again, and James realises that he really doesn't mind being shoved against random walls in random corridors, nor does he mind having the freezing stone against his back. In fact, it's probably the best damn thing that's ever happened to him.

Slowly, Lily starts to agree.

Hogsmeade trips become more common, merging into dates, and suddenly everyone is aware of what's going on.

Sirius in particular, starts singing songs about them, pushing them into broom closets together, and making loud impersonations of the two to a riveted Great Hall.

And Lily doesn't mind one bit.

James is ecstatic, especially when Lily grabs his hand of her own accord on the way to breakfast, links her fingers with his on the way to class, and only lets go when she has to start taking notes, whispering at him to do the same.

Remus wins the bet.

He asks her to the graduation ball, losing his breath when she comes down the stairs in the most god damn _amazing_ piece of fabric ever (he thinks it's called a dress, but coherent thought is escaping him at that particular moment), and doesn't let her out of his sight all evening.

Later on, when they're dancing under the stars in the middle of the Great Hall, he tells her he loves her.

She doesn't say it back.

He runs, his friends calling after him, Lily in tears in the middle of the dancefloor.

She finds him at the edge of the lake, wincing as he stiffens at her touch. He snaps at her, tells her to leave him alone.

She won't. She tells him she loves him too.

He doesn't believe her.

So Lily Evans, _Lily Evans_, who once swore that she would never in a million years even _like_ James Potter, gets down on one knee, in that _fantastic_ dress, in the dirt, and asks him to marry her.

He's dumbstruck, yanks her to her feet, swears loudly into the night.

She's not allowed to propose to him, he says, it's meant to be him proposing to her.

She shrugs, and suggests a compromise. If he loves her, and she loves him, and he wants to marry her, and she wants to marry him, then why don't they just propose to each other?

He grins, burying his head in her neck, pulling her close. Agreeing.

Remus wins another bet.

Sirius is seriously (no pun intended of course) starting to believe that Remus is cheating.

Peter just mourns the loss of his last few galleons for the train ride home.

They graduate together, making subtle references to each other in the final speech of the year, and spend most of the train ride home in silence.

He turns to her at Kings Cross, asks her to move in, and gives her an engagement ring in front of the entire student body of Hogwarts and their parents, in front of his parents.

She agrees. And tells him off for spending so much.

They hold the wedding less than a month after, Lily in yet another dumbfounding, amazing dress, sending his heart racing as she walks slowly up the aisle.

He manages to get through his part fine, but as they approach her part, he gets steadily more and more nervous (as if he wasn't nervous enough already), shaking beside her.

She grabs his hand, pulls him towards her, almost laughing at his expression.

Then she says yes.

And it's bliss, utter bliss, as he pulls her close and kisses her with everything that he has, which she returns with the same intensity.

And they both wonder why it took them so long to realise.

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><p><em>Well there it is! Hope my first crack at this fandom worked out okay! :\<em>

_Chur for reading!_

_cricketchick1990_


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